Misdirected Vengeance

November 8, 2016 treated the U.S. and the world to quite the earthquake, shock, upset, headscratcher, statistical outlier, unexpected outcome. Lots of analysis has been devoted to this outcome, and I’ll add my own brief take on the still-unfolding results (as of this writing, Donald Trump is the president elect with 306 Electoral votes to Clinton’s 232, but Clinton leads the popular vote with almost 63 million to Trump’s 61.5 million, and millions more to be counted).

First, a few words about California and local elections. From an Armenian perspective, the most important election was in the 43rd Assembly District. That ended up as a disaster and will take some serious analysis, over time, to decipher. By all accounts, it was an eminently winnable race. It didn’t help that one small faction of the community endorsed against our community’s “home-town” favorite, Ardy Kassakhian. Other Armenian-wise important elections had positive outcomes resulting in soon-to-be State Senator Anthony Portantino and re-elected Assemblymember Adrin Nazarian. Plus, the majority of ANCA’s endorsed candidates won.

Turning to the propositions (please see the tables in my piece two weeks ago), at the statewide level, twelve of the seventeen measures had outcomes that matched my recommendations. Four (Props 60, 61, 62, and 63) went in the opposite direction, and one (Prop 66) has a very small chance of not passing, as I had recommended. On the local ballot measures all but one (LA City’s SSS) went as I recommended.

Back to the presidential election which, coupled with wins in the House of Representatives and Senate have put the Republican Party in control of the federal government since George W. Bush’s time in office. Now, instead of being obstructionists with the singular aim of destroying any chance of a president’s (Obama) success, this party’s members will actually have to learn to govern. If they don’t, any negative outcomes in the economy and every other field of the public interest will be blamed on them since the have full control. That could lead to disastrous election outcomes two years from now.

But how did this happen? Based on all the polling and common sense, Donald Trump “should have” lost. He was extremely disliked. But, so was Hillary Clinton. Paradoxically, with millions of votes left to count, Clinton is already the second-highest vote-getter among all candidates for the office of president in all of American history. How is all this possible?

In addition to the typical dilemma faced by voters – the who-do-I-dislike-less as a basis for choosing, this year there was something more. There was disgust with political elites. There was disgust with the media. There was disgust with the tightening economic noose middle-class citizens have experienced for close to four decades. All of these led to a desire for revenge against those seen as responsible for the misery. There was, as a friend relayed from a conversation, a “heedless desire for change” that drove people’s voting decisions.

Bernie Sanders was able to tap into this sentiment in an affirmative way, but was (likely) cheated out of the nomination. Trump was also able to tap into this sentiment. But, his shady business background and wheeler-dealer ways led him to play to the darker side of human nature as well, attracting racists and other reactionary segments of the voting public. While by no means the majority of his supporters, this led to the now-indelible image of Trump as a racist/misogynist/immigrant-hater/etc. This gave Clinton a battering ram with which to cudgel Trump.

You probably see the perversity in all this. A billionaire who cheats the “little-guys” he has worked with is perceived as the guardian of the “little-guys” who have lost their jobs to very poorly structured international trade agreements made by the billionaires of the world. The let-down his supporters are likely to experience will be massive. This sense of being misled will lead to more chaotic, unpredictable, results in future elections.

Internationally, this presidential outcome is being seen as the continuation of an anti-establishment trend. Some have labeled it a “nationalist” trend, with a negative connotations attributed to nationalism. We will see if this is true in upcoming European elections.

A truly worrisome outcome of this election is the reaction of the winning side to the losing side’s demonstrations/protests. Forget about the likelihood that if the outcome had been reversed, there would have been protests, too. But now, there is a wave of anti-protester sentiment, with one senator proposing to make certain minor offenses into major ones, with criminal consequences. People are forgetting how fundamental the right to assemble is. That’s why it’s included in the FIRST amendment to the U.S. Constitution as part of the Bill of Rights.

Finally, our community’s seeming preference for Trump is worrisome. A bellicose world leader with no real governance or diplomatic experience could be become a real headache for Armenian issues. Plus, the rationales for selecting him over Clinton are specious or shaky. We know nothing about his stances on Armenian-related issues. Assuming he will clash with Turkey as some have, is not a very strong argument. Far too many of our community members have been imbued with the knee-jerk Clinton-hating that has poisoned the election. None of this is to argue that Clinton with her flip-flopping on the Genocide and close ties to the Turkish government and Gulen movement is any better.

I suppose we’ll see how things turn out. Of course, as Harut Sassounian has already recommended, we should be reaching out to Trump and others we did not support to begin relationships with him and them. Let’s get busy. We’re going to have a long, trying, four years, both as citizens and Armenians.

Discussion Policy

Comments are welcomed and encouraged. Though you are fully responsible for the content you post, comments that include profanity, personal attacks or other inappropriate material will not be permitted. Asbarez reserves the right to block users who violate any of our posting standards and policies.

Many of the anti-Trump “demonstrators” were rioting and destroying property. You know that. Let’s not minimize that.

Even Sasna Dzer did not do that.

Do you want that sort of behavior in Armenia and Artsakh?

Many people voted against Hillary Clinton because the Democrats had completely gone over to, for example, the LGBT side.

Garen, do you want the Armenian Supreme Court to force gay marriage on the people as the US Supreme Court did?
Do you want little children in Armenia and Artsakh to be told, as they are in America, that they can pick to be any gender the want?
Do you want a baker in Artsakh to be forced to bake a gay wedding cake as the courts have ruled in America?
Garen, do you wish that the Armenian church would marry same sex couples?
Those are the things that many Democrats have brought to America.
Do you want these same things to be forced on Armenia and Artsakh by the courts over there?
Do you want Armenia to be flooded by illegal immigrants when the borders open – as is happening in the US?
You want Turks and Azeris to go in illegally and try to take over?

Regarding the recent elections and a host of issues on the table — from transgender locker rooms to immigration — a lot is changing and quickly.

I have identified as a progressive for most of my adult life. For the last several years, culminating with protests and riots following the US presidential elections, I have begun witnessing just how intolerant many progressives are of views and beliefs that do not match their own (all while purportedly teaching tolerance). Because of this, my political positions are shifting. Shouldn’t tolerance go both ways? A different belief or view does not automatically make someone a bigot or racist or xenophobe.

I wholeheartedly agree that our community’s blind faith in Trump and hatred towards Hillary is going to really bite back just like you said early on, when the “little guys” who voted for Trump will be the first to feel the I’ll effects of a Republican regime slashing all the programs they need to survive. Trump already placed Michael Flynn, an Erdogan loyalist, in the country’s top National Security position, so any hopes in bucking Turkey can now be erased. I am an unabashed liberal but I will admit here that I had one hope for the trump presidency that I didn’t have for Clinton presidency was that he will take an anti-Turkey stance, but with yesterday’s news of Flynn’s appointment to the Director of National Security, a position that does NOT need Senate confirmation, that hope of mine is now squashed. This national election was not about Armenia, both candidates refused to release any statement on our priorities despite being asked. This national election was between a shrewd and skilled politician and a bumbling rich privileged bafoon. Also the Asbarez had published an article about Ardy Kassakian’s campaign getting hate calls, people telling Ardy to “go back to his country.” All those Armenians who voted for Trump are the same as those anti-Armenian racists. We will never gain genocide recognition because there will be Armenians who stand in our way, in DC it is the Assembly, but on the national stage Armenian Trump supporters, just like the white working class, have stood in the way of democratic progress of our beautiful country we have adopted as our home.

Latest

A delegation of representatives from the Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region (ANCA-WR) on Monday participated and witnessed the swearing in ceremonies of the members of the California State Legislature and met with legislators to convey issues of priority for the Armenian-American constituencies.

Most Popular

A delegation of representatives from the Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region (ANCA-WR) on Monday participated and witnessed the swearing in ceremonies of the members of the California State Legislature and met with legislators to convey issues of priority for the Armenian-American constituencies.